White privilege has become the new talking point for
silencing conservatives on college campuses. I have faced this argument head-on
every time I visited a college campus or discussed contemporary problems with
liberals, whether at Cal State Fullerton, UCLA, UC Berkeley (before Antifa
robbed me then pepper-sprayed me).
What is “white privilege”? Not exactly sure. Hollow
race-based talking points from the left are often vacuous. Ben Shapiro called
it a cheap left-wing rhetorical trick to silence criticism. “You are white,
therefore you have no right to comment on the problems afflicting black and
Hispanic communities in the United States.”
An academic definition,
if possible: white privilege is a set of societal benefits which white people
enjoy because of their skin color, "an invisible package of unearned
assets".
These charges are especially frustrating because this line
of “thinking” contends that people like me benefit from this unperceived systemic
racism. Whites get all the breaks, while blacks are systematically targeted by
government institutions and private businesses in hiring, the criminal justice
system, and education, hence the high black crime rates, rioting, the degrading
conditions of urban ghettoes etc. The white guy has it good just because he’s
white, and therefore he needs to “check his privilege” and empathize with the
plights of the poor, down-trodden minorities.
Ann
Coulter has slammed this racist line of argument soundly, and she
identified a key moment in history when this white privilege, or rather white
guilt narrative started crumbling under its own hypocrisy: The OJ Simpson trial.
In 1995, a majority black jury exonerated a clearly guilty black man for
killing his ex-wife and her new boyfriend. Coulter continues: “Overnight, the
white guilt bank — once thought “too big to fail” — was shut down. Henceforth,
instead of producing stuttering embarrassment, liberal moral intimidation on
race produced only eye-rolling. With that, America became a much healthier
country, especially for black people.”
For the majority of Americans, especially white Americans, that
verdict did not fit. Men and women of sound mind and outrage said “We quit” …
feeling guilty, that is. Coulter then details the immense criminal enforcement
and welfare reforms which followed right after that corrupt verdict. These
changes benefited all Americans, particularly blacks. In short, the OJ verdict outraged
the country, pushing people past their discomforting fear of the race card to
demand action against societal ills, regardless of the communities where they
were prominent.
The OJ Verdict trumped he race card in the 1990's, but Coulter
then drew a plumb-line to the Obama Administration and the return of the race
card. White privilege became the talking point and memo for professors, liberal
agitators, the Occupy Movement, etc. Poor Trayvon and Michael Brown were
supposed to prove to the American public that despite a Black president and
black executive secretaries, the United States was still a racist country, and
white America owed everyone else an apology and massive contrition.
Once again, the liberal media played along and demanded that
we Americans, particularly white America, let them push us into a corner of
guilt over covert racism—especially if we the people criticized Barack Obama. At
least The Weekly Standard’s Bill
Kristol called “Bulls—t” on Bill Maher’s show.
Trump has arrived, though, and has indeed “trumped” the
Left’s race card, but not just on urban renewal for blacks:
1.
Illegal immigration
In my view, the American public and thus the Presidential
candidates, especially the winner in the White House today, spoke freely
against illegal immigration because of the tragic, avoidable murder of Kate
Steinle. For decades, the liberal press force-fed Americans a steady diet of “pity
the poor illegals, you privileged (white) Americans.” We shouldn’t begrudge
mass illegal immigration into our country. It’s our fault they’re here, anyway.
But while Americans, especially working-class white Americans, were lectured
about their untold benefits from “white privilege”, they were losing jobs, they
saw their factories shut down and moved oversees, and worst of all, they
witnessed their loved ones murdered by illegal aliens.
Just like white America got angry over a guilty black man walking,
so too Middle America got tired of the liberal moral shaming. Candidate Trump spoke
loudly and proudly what was on the minds of millions of working class voters. I
would add that his message of strengthening American manufacturing, securing
our borders, and ensuring public safety resonated with black and Hispanic American
working-class voters, too.
2.
Islam
This time, I am not qualifying this political sect with
“radical.” Read the Koran, follow the devastating, chaotic agenda of Muslims
calling themselves faithful adherents to Mohammed, and you will find a
political cult, not a benign religion. Once again, Trump was not afraid to say:
“Why don’t we stop everything until we figure out what the hell is going on?” Trump
wanted a pause, not a Muslim ban. But the Democratic Party and their left-wing
grassroots hordes still want to play the national bigotry card. I have heard
this iteration of the race card
most recently
from CAIR-LA Director Hussam Ayloush at Scripps College.
The big event that freed up Americans to speak plainly in
opposition to Islam. Mr. “Diversity Visa” Sayfullo Saipov and his jihadi truck
driving in New York City. It didn’t help that he murdered eight Americans so
close to Ground Zero.
Enough. The liberal shaming over white privilege, which really
wasn’t, gave us the following:
OJ Simpson, who got away with killing his wife.
Five-time deported illegal alien Jose Zarate, who killed an
innocent young woman walking on the pier with her father.
Islamic radical Sayfullo Saipov, who murdered eight
Americans, even though neighbors and co-workers had reported this man to
authorities about his radicalized tendencies.
With all the talk about “White privilege” and the moral
intimidation which accompanies it, what has happened? Disadvantages,
particularly for whites. Would someone please explain to me where white
privilege fits into all of this? It’s time to shut down these arguments for
good in the new generation coming out of college campuses and in our schools.
